Ok we receive abusive message often but since I took my time to personally respond to this one I wanted to share it with the remaining users:

> Someone has posted to Freeform. Here are the details:
>
> Entry Date: 2009-03-08 03:16 PM
> Form Name: general_contact
> Name: Zeno
> Message: The most idiotic software to ruin your storage-card.
> If the guys were not idiots to make such a software, i would say it’s a
> ripoff to make you buy newer cards, cause you ‘ll quickly destroy your
> present card.
> There’s no need for defrag on flash memories or any kind of storage-cards.
>
> [EDIT: Removed link to warez site, no piracy allowed here, OK?]
>
> http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2007/01/12/everything-you-want-to-know-about-sd.aspx
> Subject: Idiotic software ripoff
> Contact email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

My response follows below:

Hi Zeno,
Thanks for your message. I don’t think we are idiots at least my own 20 years of expertise in the field tells me we are not.

Although storage cards do not have movable parts they still benefit from defragmentation because:

1) Storage card memory is not RAM. Storage cards are always accessed in blocks of several kilobytes. So to read even 1 byte you have to read the entire block. When files are contiguous access is faster because they are block aligned. If you have a 3K file that occupies 6 clusters 512 bytes each in different locations on the card the block driver will have to read 6 blocks from the memory card. If the file is contigious all blocks will likely be read in one single block.

2) Fragmented file systems cannot be easily recovered with data recovery software. It is a good idea to keep your files defragmented in case anything bad happens and you decide to undelete files or scandisk the storage card.

So with all my respect to the posts you mentioned I do not think we are such an idiots you are making us look like.

Best regards,
Anton Tomov

If anybody wishes to comment I will be happy to start a discussion on the topic.

Ok we receive abusive message often but since I took my time to personally respond to this one I wanted to share it with the remaining users:

> Someone has posted to Freeform. Here are the details:
>
> Entry Date: 2009-03-08 03:16 PM
> Form Name: general_contact
> Name: Zeno
> Message: The most idiotic software to ruin your storage-card.
> If the guys were not idiots to make such a software, i would say it’s a
> ripoff to make you buy newer cards, cause you ‘ll quickly destroy your
> present card.
> There’s no need for defrag on flash memories or any kind of storage-cards.
>
> [EDIT: Removed link to warez site, no piracy allowed here, OK?]
>
> http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2007/01/12/everything-you-want-to-know-about-sd.aspx
> Subject: Idiotic software ripoff
> Contact email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

My response follows below:

Hi Zeno,
Thanks for your message. I don’t think we are idiots at least my own 20 years of expertise in the field tells me we are not.

Although storage cards do not have movable parts they still benefit from defragmentation because:

1) Storage card memory is not RAM. Storage cards are always accessed in blocks of several kilobytes. So to read even 1 byte you have to read the entire block. When files are contiguous access is faster because they are block aligned. If you have a 3K file that occupies 6 clusters 512 bytes each in different locations on the card the block driver will have to read 6 blocks from the memory card. If the file is contigious all blocks will likely be read in one single block.

2) Fragmented file systems cannot be easily recovered with data recovery software. It is a good idea to keep your files defragmented in case anything bad happens and you decide to undelete files or scandisk the storage card.

So with all my respect to the posts you mentioned I do not think we are such an idiots you are making us look like.

Best regards,
Anton Tomov

If anybody wishes to comment I will be happy to start a discussion on the topic.

Cheers,
Anton

I had a problem with mechanic pro when repairing and sticking it into the XP machine :( - it asked to format the card - however that somehow cleared up and works fine both in the pc and pda…

In what way is that story related to the topic of discussion (storage card defragmentation)?